Archive for the ‘Albums’ Category

A lot of the chipscene is based in eitherthe Americas, Europe, or Asia. So many talented artists come from these four continents that we often forget about good ol’ Australia. With the recent influx of interest in Square Sounds Melbourne 2018, and a steady flow of music coming from Australian chipmusicians over the last few years, now seems like the perfect time to review one of the most recent works to come out of the region. Calavera is known for his down-tempo bass-filled bangers of tracks, and his most recent work, ‘Kintsugi’, certainly delivers them. We’ll be looking at three tracks from this album in-depth, so buckle up for one hell of a ride.

IDecade—yet another amazing Italian chipmusician—is a relative newcomer to chiptune. You may have seen him posting his LSDJ tutorial videos around the Facebook group recently, but he started in 2015 using Milkytracker. Since his transition to LSDJ in 2016, he’s been making catchy dance tracks in various genres, and he’s made an immense amount of progress in the 2 short years he’s been releasing musi. With his latest album, ‘Sinergy’—released this past December—he’s ready to set the international chip community on fire.

[Editor’s note: I nearly un-retired from review writing to cover this magnificent new release composed by one of my original childhood inspirations; Tanaka-san’s Metroid OST is largely responsible for initially engaging my interests in both VGM and chip, if not music in general! I’m glad I didn’t, however, as Paul has done a marvelous job conveying his own enthusiasm and appreciation for ‘Django’ as a chipmusic composer himself. Regardless, please enjoy this lovely take from a member of the new chiptune generation on one of the forefathers of chipmusic’s latest works! ~Brandon L. H.]

If you’ve read any of my previous reviews, you know how laudative and enthusiastic I can get. But today is a bit different. Here I am, listening to this album again, reading up on Tanaka-san’s bio to research the article, recalling the mind-bending experience that was seeing him live at Square Sounds Tokyo last September. Here I am, writing about the article, instead of the album or the artist, trying to sound meta and smart, keeping my composure, because I don’t want you to know that words are failing me.

I don’t want this article to be a string of enthusiastic platitudes and generic descriptions of the music. I love this album and I want my review to do it justice, beyond the fact that I’m still starstruck and not in any fit state to be objective.

And even if this album refuses to fit nicely in a traditional 2k-word album review, which it probably will, I’m still gonna give it my best shot. Here we are. Let me tell you about Chip Tanaka, and his album, ‘Django’.

This beautiful cover art shows the many qualities of Chip Tanaka’s music: Eclectic, goofy, organic, multi-facetted and good for your health.

2018 has been a good start for chipmusic, and we can easily thank those who released music in the prior year for that. 2017 had some very high-key releases that managed to overshadow many others due to their surge in popularity and the quality of their music being nothing short of top-notch. As a community this is a great “problem” to have, but from an individual artist perspective it can be very tough for new or less-popular acts. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you might accidentally have slept on Business Pastel’s self-titled debut album, which deserves the attention of anyone in chipmusic that enjoys dance music with vibes of electro, future bass, d&b and hints or suggestions of other genres.

Hello! It’s my first review of the year so I thought I’d begin with a compilation straight from down under. Released on 18th January, ‘The Great Australian Barbecue Bash’ compilation is the first of its kind featuring an all aussie line up with all the artists, covering an fellow artist from the country. It’s a fantastic line up, with prolific artists such as Ctrix, Tomfoolery and The Family Jewellery, Calavera, and many more!